Global Shifts and the East in Cyprus’ Foreign Policy – By Zenonas Tziarras: In Depth, Vol.12, no3, pp.20-22, June 2015

By Zenonas Tziarras

Over the past ten years or so the foreign policy of Cyprus, more specifically the Republic of Cyprus, has improved significantly in that it has started, despite some persisting problems and dilemmas, to realize and utilize the island’s geostrategic role. To this emerging reality contributed three main factors: i) the maturing of the country’s political elites; ii) Turkey’s increasing self-aggrandizement and destabilizing foreign policy which led it to multiple diplomatic and strategic dead-ends; and iii) Cyprus’ delimitation of its maritime Exclusive Economic Zone with Egypt, Lebanon and Israel and the discovery of hydrocarbons within it.